Spring Break
Incredible India!
HBS SABA Winter Trek
Laura Huddleston (OC), Trek Participant
Issue date: 2/17/09 Section: Features
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After deciding to join the SABA trek back in September, I didn't realize that I would have to decide again whether or not to join the trek in India for 2 weeks over winter break. I distinctly remember sitting at Logan airport waiting for my flight home for Thanksgiving, checking my blackberry to kill time, and seeing the email from the SABA trek organizers about following the 'recent events' in Mumbai very closely. It occurred to me that the TVs in the gate area were tuned to CNN, so I looked up and saw the Taj Palace hotel in Mumbai in flames.
In the weeks that followed, big decisions had to be made. We were offered the opportunity to drop out of the trek, with a partial refund (though no such love from the airlines) or to skip the Mumbai portion of the trip. Little did I know that the trek itself was in jeopardy of being cancelled completely. Fortunately the trek continued, though with a dramatically reduced number of participants - from 90 down to 63, even including many who joined late. We were led by Abhinav Sinha, Zuber Mohammed, Thomas Rajan, and Saurabh Agarwal in collaboration with SITA travel.
Staying on the trek is probably the best decision I've made all year. The 13 days we spent touring the magnificent country were unforgettable. Each trek participant was issued a cell phone and the security everywhere we went was very tight. It was also easier to get to know 60 people instead of 90 over the 2 weeks. The trek organizers even managed to set up mass texting, so we always knew when to meet and where, making every day run smoothly. We started our first day with a long drive in bright orange coaches out into the countryside of Uttar Pradesh province. Since 80% of this country's 1.1 billion people live in a rural setting, had we not ventured out as we did, we would have missed a large part of India's culture and way of life. We got a first-hand view of Indian traffic: unrivaled chaos in the streets with cars, rickshaws, cows, bicycles, pedestrians and others jockeying for position in the clear hierarchy of biggest on down. Giant orange coach, fortunately = biggest. We finally made it to our destination, Rajugela Village, to visit the school there where we were met by eager young children who had come to school on a Sunday, just for us.
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